We launch Hardball on September 22, and I’m slowly getting ready. We had t-shirts
made (be sure to join the raffle if you want one) I’ve done a few interviews, including the chance to take part in NPR’s “You Must Read This” series. I’ll be launching the tour at Barnes & Noble in Old Orchard at 7:30 on September 22, but I’ll be doing some stock signings during the day, including one at Women & Children First at 5 p.m.
I had to have some rotten bone dug out of my jaw last week and a bone graft put in, so I am also ready to challenge myself physically on the tour. The experience made me remember a time about 15 years ago, when I was on tour in Germany. Despite obsessive flossing, brushing, professional care by the yard, I have terrible teeth, and one of them gave up the ghost in Frankfurt. The publisher sent me to her dentist, who hacked and sawed and splintered the tooth, all the while murmuring, “Erschrecken Sie sich nicht” (a polite way of saying don’t freak out.) A Jew in a German dental chair, staring up at the Siemens logo on all the equipment while someone smashed my tooth to smithereens, I was freaking–but forty minutes later I was live on Frankfurt television, pretending nothing had happened. So I expect to rise above my recent surgery as well and be ready to see as many of you as will join me on the road.